


To Be A Good Queen

by DreamerInSilico



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/F, but this is an entirely serious ficlet set, even though i've written about kieran after dai, i ship it thanks to cosplay and roleplay reasons, morrigan's child will always be a daughter to me, really tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 08:37:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16889220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamerInSilico/pseuds/DreamerInSilico
Summary: Morrigan and Anora reflect on moderately unorthodox philosophies.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr, now archived here along with the rest of my work.

The servants didn’t see her enter, nor make her way toward the private royal library.  They never did.  

 

A certain superfluous torch was lit outside the maid Erlina’s chamber along the way, and in short order the witch was settled comfortably in one of the library’s many sheltered nooks to wait.  It was not terribly long before the door opened and closed again quietly, and the queen appeared from around a bookcase.  

“Morrigan, it’s good to see you.  I came as quickly as I could when Erlina told me you were here.”  Morrigan rose from her chair and accepted the extended arm to clasp - the single, not-altogether-unpleasant concession she made to the social rituals most of Thedas was so enamored of, at least around Anora and a very select few others.  Anora smiled easily and gestured toward the chair Morrigan had vacated.  "Please, sit.  I’ve sent for some tea, and that will be along in a few minutes.“  

"My thanks… it has been a long evening,” Morrigan murmured.  

“How does the little one fare?” the queen asked, taking the Orlesian-styled chair adjacent.  

Morrigan smiled slightly, a wry twist of the lips.  "She is well… and taking after her father, which suits our purposes, if not my sense of aesthetics.“  

Anora laughed at that, shaking her head.  "Alistair was not so bad to look on, when he was here, but I can imagine you’d prefer not to think of him in… that way.”  

“Yes, well, Neria is most welcome to him.”  Neria had taken on the role of Commander of the Grey after the Blight had been ended, and Alistair gone with her to rebuild the order.  It had worked out well enough for all involved, though Morrigan would never understand the pair’s preference for continuing to play hero when all the real power lay elsewhere.  

Erlina arrived with the tea, setting it down silently at the queen’s elbow and nodding a greeting to Morrigan before she withdrew.  

“Can I not convince you to establish a residence here?” Anora asked, swirling a lump of sugar pensively around her cup.  "You know I would provide both resources and discretion, and I wouldn’t try to turn you into a courtier.“  

Morrigan shook her head.  ” ‘Tis too soon, even had I the desire to spend more time in cities than I already do.  Imogen has only barely learned to contain her magic.  She learns very quickly, to be sure, but she is young yet and the risk is too high. Perhaps in another few years, but not now.“  

"Very well.  I agree that the potential to have her draw the templars’ notice prematurely would be… something to avoid, to put it lightly,” Anora assented.  "I’m afraid my understanding of magic and its manipulation is somewhat limited.“  

There was a pause as both women remembered their tea, and then Anora’s eyes lit with a touch of mischief.  "A point of curiosity, if I may ask…”  

Morrigan raised an eyebrow.  "Ask away.“  

"However  _did_  you convince Alistair to lie with you?  It was no secret that you two were… not fond of one another… even then, and he’s the sort to find the idea of laying down his life for his lady love tragically romantic.  I can’t imagine he would have done so just to save himself.”  

The witch snorted indelicately into her tea.  "Certainly not.  'Twas no secret we disliked one another because of all the bickering, no?“  

"That was what made it obvious, yes…” Anora ventured.  

“Then you tell me, my friend - what might induce me to waste such time sniping back and forth with an overgrown child when I could have had silence, instead?”  

“I’m guessing it wasn’t out of boredom,” the queen said with dry humor.

“No, indeed.”

“So you were either distracting him or you wanted him to hate you… or both?" 

"Both,” Morrigan confirmed with a small smile.  "I wanted him to hate me, but because I was  _objectionable_ , rather than because I was a threat.  He is noble enough to overcome mere distaste if the need is great, but if he had thought me more conniving than petty - and he would have, left alone, since I was an apostate shapeshifter and he a templar - it would have made things difficult.  In addition, finding me so objectionable made a fairly polite elven Circle mage much easier to trust by comparison.“  

”… So you didn’t convince him; you got her to do it for you.“ 

"Precisely.”

“Cailan didn’t understand how to direct people’s perceptions,” Anora mused.  "I would watch as he turned his blinding goodwill toward everyone regardless of their attitude or motivations, and think to myself, 'That is going to get him killed one day.’  I suppose in a certain light it’s  _almost_  funny how right I was about that…“ she finished darkly.  

"Did you care for him?” Morrigan asked curiously.  

Anora sighed, looking tired.  "Yes, I did, strange as I suppose that may seem to you.  He was a good man, in the way most people speak of good men.  Forthright, kind, generous… if the world was as he, in his naïvité, saw it, it would be a much more pleasant place to live.  It was hard not to appreciate that about him, even as I scrambled about trying to make sure I knew and could influence what was really going on, and trying not to draw so much attention to myself that the courtiers thought me too ambitious.  But good men seldom make good kings, I think… and I would prefer to be a good queen.“

” 'Tis what I first liked about you.“  

"You are kind,” Anora replied, inclining her head.  

“I believe you may be the first to say so,” Morrigan laughed.  "But I am correct, and much like being a good queen, that is my preference.“  


	2. Chapter 2

“You said the Queen was like us,” Imogen observed, her voice far too modulated and dispassionate to pass as that of a normal five-year-old, and her golden eyes trained upward. “But I could not feel her touch the Fade.”

“Not in that way,” replied the elder mage, with far more patience than she had ever shown another living creature as she glanced to her daughter, then motioned for the girl to follow down a narrow side corridor as they made their unobtrusive way out of the palace from their audience with Queen Anora via little-known escape tunnels.

“There are other kinds of power that are nearly as potent. She has a nation at her command, and more importantly…” Morrigan paused. Smiled. “Well. What did she seem like to you? How did you feel in her presence?”

“I…” The young girl frowned, as if searching her memories – or, more likely, for the words to describe them. “I wanted her to like me. And I did not like that.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Morrigan murmured, pleased. “One of her particular talents is to inspire the wish for her approval. So people obey her, sometimes without even realizing why it is they do so.” Another quiet pause, while they slipped through a heavy door and into a still-narrower passageway that would lead them not only out of the palace grounds, but out of Denerim, entirely.

“I am… proud that you recognized it.”


End file.
